Fixing Nintendo's Virtual Console

When I look at Nintendo's Virtual Console (VC) service on the 3DS, Wii, and Wii U, I see nothing but wasted potential. Don't get me wrong, I love all the games I've downloaded and the convenience of having multiple console-generations at my finger tips. What I don't love is the mystery behind Nintendo's reluctance to fully utilize what should be it's number one asset.

The Virtual Console should be the gateway for both longtime and new gamers. Nintendo's back catalog of games is massive, influential, relevant, and most importantly, fun. To this day, many of the gems in Nintendo's VC lineup are still considered beacons of what the industry is capable of. Since its inception in 2006 on the Wii, the VC has become home to a respectable collection of classic games numbering somewhere around the 400 mark. While this should be a ringing success for Nintendo, there are many factors at play limiting this amazing service.

First, the Virtual Console should have been ready to go in the Wii U eShop on day one. With years between system launches, Nintendo had plenty of time to get the service ready to go, with at least all of its own first-party titles available for sale out of the box. Instead, we're going to be more than half a year into the system's life before we get a small selection of what's been available on the Wii for ages. The same goes for the 3DS. It's been out for a good stretch and it doesn't even have SNES games yet. Nintendo continues to stick with this odd business model of slowly eeking out titles haphazardly and with little regularity. How this is supposed to make the service successful eludes me. iTunes accounted for approximately 60% of digital music sales this past year; with millions of songs in the iTunes store, it stands to reason that content volume does not deter consumers, so where are the games, Nintendo?

Not only is the output of games onto the Wii and 3DS VC anemic, but Nintendo hasn't even gotten all of their own great titles onto it yet. No Earthbound, Yoshi's Island, Star Fox, or Pokemon, and some titles like the Donkey Kong Country trilogy have even been pulled with zero fanfare or warning. Seven years and counting, and we're still wondering where some of the classics are. The 3DS is the dream tool for getting out all those great Game Boy and Game Boy Color games and yet there's not even Donkey Kong Land on the service. It's utterly bewildering. All we're talking about is making a ROM to shuttle off for digital distribution. A high school senior could probably do it in their sleep. But Nintendo... waits. For what?

I think what needs to happen first is we get the Wii U VC up to par within three months of it's launch. If Nintendo waited to the last minute to get the ball rolling, they can at least accelerate the release schedule and do whatever tweaking needs to happen to get these games quickly available. From there, get out all the quintessential first-party games. There's no excuse to not have your best and brightest waving the flag and drawing in gamers. I also think that GBA needs to be making its way to the 3DS and not just the Wii U. I'm an ambassador and I'm loving my free games, but believe me, Nintendo, I'm not going to trade in my 3DS if you start offering those games to everyone else. It's an entire generation of great titles sitting and doing nothing. Let's also see more Game Gear games and bring Virtual Boy to 3DS. Take it seriously and maybe more of the third-parties will start getting on board again with their own back catalogs. Which raises another issue; licensed games. I know I'm not alone in having childhood memories of playing Duck Tales or the Ninja Turtles games on my NES. While they might not be as "classic" as Super Mario Bros., games like these are the cornerstone for a lot of people's experiences growing up playing games. Nintendo knows the power of nostalgia, and their publishing and developing partners should, too.

While agreements and licenses expire, we do continue to see some of these companies maintaining ties as the years go buy. Sega published games featuring Marvel characters on Wii, Capcom re-released Mickey's Magical Quest on GBA, and Konami's done some TMNT games in the not-so distant past. Nintendo should at least try to get these parties talking to see how they can get games like X-Men and Turtles in Time on the VC, because there are plenty of people out there who will buy those games again if given the chance. Sure, it might be a stretch for a lot of those older titles, but the almighty dollar prevails in the end, so maybe at least a few of these games can make their way back to the light.

The VC could also benefit from seeing some Japan-only releases make their way stateside. I'd kill to play the original Fire Emblem with an English localization. Why not take the chance to dust off some games we never got to play and offer them here, even if at a slight premium? There's a market for it, surely, if we have people to this day spending hundreds of dollars to import games they can't even read the text of. I'd also love to see some of the satellite service SNES games make their way here. Zelda alone had an interesting batch of games for the service that would be really fun to play around with.

On a more experimental and slightly less realistic note, what about doing some tweaking to select VC games to freshen them up in subtle ways? For instance, Contra had 2-player co-op back in the day; why not do some magic with the code and let people experience that over wifi? It seems like a simple tweak that could let people play together with voice-chat like a modern game. It doesn't have to be every game, maybe just some of the more popular titles at first. Imagine Pokemon Red if you could make trades wirelessly like the modern games. Replace the game link cable with a wifi connection and suddenly you have magic in your hands. If Nintendo could offer broadband Super Mario Kart on the SNES in the 90's, why can't I get wifi Super Mario Kart on my Wii U? (Btw, Street Fighter II for Genesis set this standard already on the Wii VC). Again, this is more wishful thinking, but not totally, and it could be a real boon to Nintendo with just a little effort on their part.

Whatever Nintendo does with the VC in the future, I can only hope that it looks a little bit like what I've suggested here. It's an incredible service that keeps alive some classic games and let's gamers new and old discover titles they might have missed otherwise. The Virtual Console could be so much more than it is, Nintendo just needs to make it happen. I will end by saying this; Nintendo, your fans are asking for more excuses to give you money-what more could you want?